Tanfield Railway & Beamish

With the ambitios plan to ride to St Mary’s Lighthouse and back with my wife aborted after 12km with her feeling unwell I hastily planned a route looping around gateshead.

Venturing up to Sunnyside from the Tyne can often feel like a hell of a slog but was detirmined to get to Beamish and follow the Coast to Coast cycleway. Moreover, I was detirmined to put my back into it. Having pootled up this path the weekend before with my wife, I wanted to see how long it would take given a sustained effort.

A bonus for reaching the first ‘summit’ was I happened to pass the station just as a train was pulling out. I couldn’t make it down to the track in time hance why I’ve shamelessly nabbed the above photo from Ian Britton. But I did manage to grab a vid of the train pulling away.

After one last little bump I was more than glad to reached Beamish and thouroughly enjoyed steaming down the flase flat.

The route home was decent though not particularly picturesque past the Nissan plant and Bolden Colliery. No issues bar one obstacle along the way.

You shall not pass

Oh, and of course, when I came to cross the river I had to wait for the party boat to go through.